by Vi Keeland
“I’m ready to do whatever it takes,” I say, completely earnest and serious as I match his stare. Then I add, almost mischievously, “Mr. Milo.”
Because I want to get back to where we were.
He turns to stare out the window, but there’s the slightest grin tugging at the corner of his lips. He’s trying hard not to smile. He wins, keeping his expression stony as he returns to the task at hand. “I want you to take the script home. I want you to start learning it. By heart.”
“Absolutely. I would be thrilled to.”
“I’m going to ask a lot of you, Jill. I have ridiculously high expectations for the show, and everyone has to meet them, and that includes the understudy for the leading role.”
“I won’t disappoint you.”
He leans forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, his hands clasped together. “Do more than not disappoint me. Exceed my expectations.”
The room seems to compress, to tighten into this one tense line from him to me as he holds my gaze, but his dark eyes give nothing away. I’m not sure if he’s trying to break me down, or to see if I can withstand the pressure. “I will give you everything, Mr. Milo.”
At last, a smirk plays on his lips. Then he whispers in a low, sexy voice that makes me heady for a moment, “It’s Davis. Just call me Davis.”
“Okay,” I say, then, as if I’m trying it on for size, I repeat his name. “Davis.”
He shakes his head twice and breathes out hard, and for some reason, I like the way he responds.
He walks over to his desk and I try to look elsewhere—at the walls, at the table, at the floor—but I can’t seem to stop checking him out, from his broad shoulders to his deliciously sculpted ass. I try to remind myself that I should not, under any circumstances, be looking at his fine ass as he grabs a spiral-bound thick set of pages.
The script.
It’s like a treasure. The book and music for the newest Stillman musical, and he holds it as such, as if it’s a great and powerful thing. I’ve only seen the pages from the audition scene. Now I’m about to dive into the whole story. I cannot wait, and when he hands it to me I take it reverently.
“Spend the next few weeks immersing yourself in it,” he says, and he’s still standing, so it’s clear that the meeting is over. I stand up, tuck the script in my purse and loop the strap over my shoulder. He walks with me to the door and as I’m reaching for my coat, I wobble in the too-big heels.
Stupid shoes.
But then his hand is on my elbow, instantly. He steadies me as I’m reaching for him so I don’t fall. When I look up at him, I can feel the flush of embarrassment creeping into my cheeks. I decide to make light of it. “That’s what I get for borrowing my roommate’s shoes. She has big feet.”
He glances down at the black pumps. “Nice shoes.”
As I follow his eyes, I realize my hand is on his shirt, my fingers fisted around the cloth, clutching it. I should let go. But I don’t. Because I can’t help but notice he has that clean and freshly showered smell that makes any woman want to lean in and lick a guy’s neck.
Close her eyes. Inhale, and trail a tongue all the way to his earlobe, enjoying the sound of a low groan.
“Nice shirt,” I say softly, running my index finger across one smooth button. Then I look up to find him staring down at me. His dark blue eyes aren’t cold anymore. They’re not keeping me at bay. Instead, they’re heated, searching mine.
It’s hypnotic the way he looks at me. Completely hypnotic, as the room goes quiet, the air between us charged.
I press my teeth against my lips and I think, but I’m not entirely sure because thought has vanished, that I nod briefly, almost as if I’m giving him permission. Then he bends towards me, and my breath catches. Before I even process rationally what’s happening his lips are on mine, and my pulse is racing. It’s barely there, just him brushing his soft lips against mine, but I want more. So I pull him closer and deepen the kiss. He groans and then suddenly his hands are in my hair, and he’s twining his fingers through my long, blond strands, and tugging me close.
I thought I was leading this kiss, but I’m not anymore because he’s claiming me, tracing his tongue across my top lip, then nipping at the bottom lip, then kissing me so deeply and with so much heat that I shudder. That only makes him kiss me harder, and everything else falls away because this is a kiss I can feel in every single cell in my body. Deep, and fevered, and possessive.
It makes me want things I’m not supposed to have.
It makes me want him.
My heart pounds wildly as he presses closer, so dangerously near to me that I’m longing for him to slam me against his body, to touch me all over. His lips own me, his hands want to know me, and I swear I might combust from this kind of electric contact.
He breaks the kiss and I’m honestly not sure where I am anymore. Or who I am. I look at him, at Davis, but everything is so hazy right now that I don’t know what to say. I don’t think he does either, because he doesn’t speak for a moment. He exhales deeply, collecting himself. As if he doesn’t know how the kiss transpired either.
“I’m sorry,” he says then steps back. He looks away from me, staring at some distant point on the wall. “That was a mistake,” he says quietly.
My mouth is open in shock. A mistake? That was a kiss that begged to become so much more.
But I manage to hide my embarrassment at having kissed my first Broadway director by doing what he hired me to do. Act.
“Yes. A mistake,” I say confidently.
“It won’t happen again,” he adds, now turning his gaze back to me, his eyes cold once more. Stripped of all that longing from seconds ago.
“Of course not. Thank you for the script. I’ll see you when rehearsals start.”
“Yes.” He returns to his desk and I grab my coat, my head cloudy even as my heart beats fast, my body still racing, still wanting.
Wanting more.
As I walk away, my lips feel bruised and so does my heart, especially when I hear him turn up the music now that I’m gone.
* * *
Over the next few weeks, I devote my energy to running every morning, learning lines every afternoon, and forgetting about that kiss every night.
I shelve it away in my kissing files that contain folders for real kisses, staged kisses and mistake kisses. This one was the latter, and it’s one that I won’t make twice. Especially when what I really want, what I’ve always wanted, what I simply know has to be right for me, is turning that staged kiss with Patrick into a real one.
Chapter 6
Davis
The cast is gathered on folded metal chairs in the rehearsal studio in midtown, not far from the theater district. The windows look out over Broadway, five stories down, as cars and cabs scream by. The sun beats through the glass, warming the studio more, even though the heat is already rasping through the radiators. It’s January, but it’s hot in here and I’ve rolled up the shirtsleeves on my white button-down shirt.
“There will be no Broadway spectacle to fall back on. There will be no dancing paintbrushes or flying monkeys. I’m not going to ask anyone to fly in on cables from the balcony and perform aerial sequences,” I say, like a football coach, giving the inspirational go-get-em team talk before the season starts. I stand at the baby grand rehearsal piano, the music director at the bench, the choreographer leaning against the bright white wall on the other side of this room. I take a beat, survey the wide-eyed talent and the jaded veterans that fill the chairs. But even the vets, even those who have amassed fat bios and credits they can pick and choose, have their eyes on me.
Except Jill. She’s staring hard at a point behind my head. She hasn’t once made eye contact.
I’m fine with that, though. I’ve been spending even more time than usual at the boxing gym, and more than an hour a day of hard hitting has helped erase the memory of that morning in my office when I couldn’t resist kissing her, when I had to know how her lips tasted. The a
nswer? Sinful. So I’ve tried to blot out the way she responded instantly to my touch. I have no room in my head or my heart for anything more with an actress. Not after the way things ended with Madeline, when she left with barely a goodbye.
“The key to this show is you,” I say, pointing at the crew with both hands as I spread my arms wide, as if I could encompass them all. “We succeed and we fail based on what happens between all of you. Crash the Moon is a story about passion and creativity and the limitless bounds of desire, both in art and in love. It’s about one young woman’s artistic and sexual awakening. It’s about a jealous man and an intense love, and it is very physical, and what’s going to make people not want to leave to take a piss during act one, to make them race back during intermission, and then get them cheering and shouting at curtain is what you—”I stop and point to all of them, to the whole cast, from the chorus members to the supporting actors to Patrick, Alexis and Jill “—bring to the stage.”
Alexis sits in the front row, kicking one high-heeled foot back and forth, showing off bare legs even in the winter. She takes pride in dressing like a starlet, and kudos to her—she’s got some Marilyn thing going on with a white swirly dress and pinned-up hair. My eyes stray to Jill once more, and my mind wanders in spite of myself. How I’d love to see her in a low-cut white dress and stilettos. Dresses that offer so much access. Dresses that can be bunched up easily for doing things behind closed doors, or in alleys, or in stairwells. Dresses that shield what you do with your hands under tables at expensive restaurants.
Her hands slipping beneath her skirt as I give her my directions. Hiding what she’s doing beneath that fabric as I deliver the instructions on how, when, and where to touch. I’d take a swallow of red wine, another bite of the steak, acting as if I’m enjoying my meal, when what I’m really enjoying is letting her know precisely how I want her to get herself off as I watch the expression on her face change.
I clench my fists once to extinguish these thoughts.
“And if you can’t handle that, if you’re too afraid, or if you’re a precious flower or a fragile thespian, then now would be the perfect time to leave.” I walk away from them, heading straight to the door. I yank on the handle, pull it open and gesture to the exit, inviting the weaker of them to go. “If you can’t leave your goddamn hearts hanging out and beating, then you should go. Because you don’t belong here. If you’re staying, then you better be prepared to slice open a vein and let it bleed on stage. Because I will accept nothing less.”
I hold the door open and wait, though I know they won’t leave. None of them want to. Still, they need to know how serious this is to me. They also need to know they’re not in charge. Some of them shift in their chairs, glance at each other, peek at the door. I shut the door hard, the snap of it echoing in the rehearsal studio. This place is pristinely quiet now, punctuated only by their breathing.
“So you’re all here,” I say as I return to the front of the room, the soles of my shoes sounding on the freshly polished hardwood floors. I stop and face them again. “You are here because you are the best. But that’s not enough anymore. Being the best got you here. I’m going to get you the rest of the way and, on opening night in eight weeks, I want the audience to feel every ounce of your pain, every molecule of your passion. Is that clear?”
Alexis raises her hand. Odd, because I wasn’t expecting a verbal response. Nor did I want one. “Davis?”
So, fine. There’s one actor who calls me by my first name. I let her get away with it because there are only so many battles I want to fight with Alexis. I save my energy for the bigger ones.
“Yes, Alexis?”
“I think I speak for all of us when I say this is going to be the greatest show Broadway has ever seen.” Then she rises from her seat, turns to her cast mates, encourages them to stand and begins a round of cheers and clapping. Some stand, some stay seated. Some cheer, some don’t. I glance briefly at Jill. Her hands are resting in her lap. She’s looking down at her feet now, but then she lifts her face and her beautiful blue eyes meet mine for the briefest of seconds. Maybe even a millisecond, but it’s as if the room goes silent and she’s the only one I see. I want to stalk over to her, kneel at her feet, cup her face in my hands. Feel her melt into me again. Kiss her neck, taste her skin, trace the hollow of her throat with my tongue. Hear her gasp again.
I remind myself that I don’t date actresses. I don’t develop feelings for them anymore. Except, there’s something about her—her humor, her toughness, her vulnerability, her beauty—that has already latched onto the fortress around my heart, threatening to undo me.
Against all my better judgement.
I wave off the clapping. “Enough.”Alexis is about to open her mouth, but I hold up a hand. “Let’s get to work.”
And so, our first rehearsal begins.
* * *
As soon as I see the pinstriped suit I groan. Don is waiting outside the rehearsal studio the next morning. The billowing trench coat makes him look even more like a two-bit mobster, and the bluetooth headset that dangles from his ear completes the douchebag look. He glares impatiently at his watch, but I’m not late for a meeting with him because I don’t have a meeting with him. In fact, I’m early and the cast isn’t due for another hour but the stage manager, Shannon, and I are scheduled to review the songs and scenes we’ll be rehearsing today.
I brace myself for whatever unpleasantries he’s come to spew as I walk to the revolving door. He holds up a hand.
“Davis,” he says in a voice that grates on me.
“Don.” I stop walking. A cold wind whips past us and Don shivers, pulling his coat closer.
“We need to talk.”
“Ah, my four least favorite words. What is it, Don? Make it fast, since Shannon and I have several songs to run through in the next hour.”
He clucks his tongue. “It’s come to my attention that you might be being a little harsh with your cast.”
I laugh instantly. Oh, this is brilliant. This is better than I could have imagined as the raison d’etre for him showing his face this fine morning. “Oh really? We have a tattletale in our midst already?”
“No,” Don lies. “But I’d like you to be a little nicer. Maybe tone it down a bit,” he says and demonstrates by pressing his palm downward.
“I should let the actors be in charge? Perhaps they can set the call sheet too? Maybe even handle the blocking, the staging, and also direct themselves?”
“Of course not. But I hope you understand that actors can be sensitive artists. And when they think you’re kind of mean –“
I cut him off. “Kind of mean? Is that the sixth-grade level we’re playing at? Let me guess. Alexis has your ear and said I was a dick when I told them to leave if they couldn’t give it their all?”
Don affixes his best poker face. “I’m not naming names,” he says, but it doesn’t take a genius to know Alexis is the narc. I knew that woman would be trouble from day one.
“What is it you want me to do differently?”
“Be nicer, okay?”
“Honestly? You came here to tell me to play nice?”
“Yes,” he mumbles.
“And, if I’m not the complete doormat you want me to be are you going to pull that whole—wait—how did it work? Oh, right. That routine where you threaten to pay my exit clause?”
“Davis,” he says, and deliberately tries to soften his voice. “I never did that.”
I step closer to him, pointing my index finger in his lying face. “You did threaten to can me. And you won the first time. But if you keep coming around here, telling me how to run the show, then I’ll walk. Got it?”
He gulps, and says nothing.
“Am I clear? If this keeps up and you show your face every time Alexis cries wolf, I will leave and then you can go find a new director. Because I won’t have this kind of questioning.”
He swallows again. His eyes look like those of a dog admonished. Then he nods.
> “Good,” I say, then return to my best gentlemanly voice. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a show to run.”
I push hard on the revolving door, head into the lobby and press the elevator button. I don’t look back. I force myself to keep my eyes fixed on the elevator doors.
When it arrives I step inside and let out the breath I’ve been holding. I run a hand through my hair. I try to shove off all the nerves I’m feeling right now, because I hate it when I have to act.
I had no choice. I needed to get him off my back, so I bluffed. I played pretend. Because the truth is, I’d never walk. I’d never leave this show. He’ll have to throw me out kicking and screaming. I am madly in love with Crash the Moon. I love this show so much it hurts, and I swear it has nothing to do with the stunningly gorgeous and talented understudy who will walk into the rehearsal studio in sixty minutes.
Alone last night, I tasted her lips again. Claimed her mouth with mine. Laced my fingers through hers and pressed her up against the wall, so she couldn’t move, and she didn’t want to, because of the things I made her feel, and say, and scream.
Sixty minutes and counting…
Chapter 7
Jill
It has to be fate.
What else could it be when the subway doors rattle open and Patrick steps inside at the next stop after mine?
He’s so handsome I have to catch my breath. It’s like looking at a Monet; he’s beautiful in the way that only masterpieces can be. I grip the pole and I can literally feel a rush of warmth expanding from my chest all the way to my fingertips. I am fluttery being near him, and when he locks eyes with me a spark of recognition flares.